A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Festival

Last Thursday, at midnight, I inadvertently found myself on a mist-covered, winding back-road in Ohio and felt I was in the prelude to one of the ghost stories I knew I’d be hearing at a concert the following night.

Near the end of a six and a half hour journey from my home in Frederick, Maryland to Chillicothe - home of the Southern Ohio Storytelling  Festival - I had somehow managed to leave the main highway and was approaching the city by a narrow country road.  By day this would have been the scenic route, but now, in the witching hour, it was covered by a thick layer of mist that reduced visibility dramatically and had me gripping the steering wheel, nose almost against the windscreen.

 I am a storyteller - stories are always floating through my mind - and driving on that country road I was reminded of another dark and misty night in 2007.

I had just conducted my first wedding, held in the evening at a vineyard in a remote part of the Maryland countryside, and on leaving I had accidentally turned the wrong way. 

Not knowing the area, I quickly became lost on back roads where visibility was less than a couple of yards. 

Suddenly an enormous truck appeared out of the gloom behind me and got so close it almost touched my bumper. 

The road curved frequently.  It was too narrow to pull over and there was nowhere to pull off.  I was going 25 miles an hour.  The truck increased its speed.  I got up to 40.  The truck was right there behind me.  I moved up to 55, still only able to see a short distance in front of me. 

I was hurtling around corners.

The truck went faster. 

My hands were in a death-grip on the wheel.  My prayer ability was reduced to a repeated:

“Jesus!  Help!”

I felt I was inside Stephen Speilberg’s first feature film, Duel, made in 1971, in which a demonic monster truck chases a car and seems determined to kill him.

My speed hit 70 miles an hour.  I was going too fast to turn into entrances and the narrow side roads were past before I could swerve into them.

I was terrified.

Finally I saw an extra-large forecourt and veered in almost crying with relief as that huge truck let out a billow of smoke and went hurtling past me into the mist-filled night.

Now, almost four years later, in the darkness of an Ohio night, I started to wonder where the truck had come from. 

At the time I had been in the first months of my job as chaplain in the largest men’s prison in Maryland.  I was in the Correctional Academy, training to be a correctional officer – a requirement for all staff who would have daily contact with inmates.

Earlier that night I had accidentally been locked in the pitch dark training annex of the prison, by myself, for what seemed like an eternity.

I didn’t think I was going to make it to the wedding. 

When I was released by someone coming to practice night shooting I was upset and discombobulated.

Then there was the truck.

There is a lot of spiritual darkness surrounding a prison.  Many of the men come with their share of demons. They meet the ones already embedded in the place.

My mind started to fantasize.

Was the speeding juggernaut a second warning of the day to keep away from the prison?

Was it a ghost truck?

Was it sent by hell to frighten me?

I was beginning to scare myself!

I don’t like ghost stories. I was only going to a concert filled with them the following night because friends would be telling including Kim Weitkamp - who has just brought out a beautifully designed spooky CD called “Head Bone Rattles.”  But driving in the mist on the outskirts of Chillicothe, minutes past midnight last Friday morning, in conditions that were bad, but far better than in my "Duel" encounter, I realized that I had just re-lived my own terror tale.

Shaking off the gloom and frissons of fear that were trying to snag me, I sang Jesus praise songs all the way to the hotel and thought about the delightful storytelling weekend ahead.

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I will always have a soft spot for the Southern Ohio Storytelling Festival. 

I performed there last year – my first storytelling festival – and it was a joy to be back seeing friends such as Peggy Riggin, who keeps all the artists on track, Bill McKell the director of the festival and his wonderful mother, Mirielle McKell. 

This year I was going as a listener, staying with my friend Storyteller Suzi Whaples who was on the lineup of tellers, together with Andy Offutt Irwin, Adam Booth, Kim Weitkamp, Bill Mckell, Kevin Coleman and Elizabeth Ellis.

They were all spectacular.

I was particularly pleased that Elizabeth Ellis – doyenne of storytelling and a Circle of Excellence Award winner - was a featured teller.

I had never heard her tell in person.

I was entranced. 

She wove a few myths and many personal stories into a world of enchantment. 

She made me think, laugh and cry.

She was generous with her time and the knowledge she had gleaned over a thirty-year storytelling career and I was thrilled to be included in a small unscheduled group that gathered after lunch one day where Elizabeth poured out wisdom mingled with earthy wit - sheer delight!

Following in the footsteps of the Jonesborough Festival, Southern Ohio gives out entry tickets that are swatches of quilt fabric. 

After a full day of listening and laughing on Friday I carefully tucked mine into a zippered pocket in my purse.  To my bewilderment I couldn’t find it the next day. 

The vibrant paisley swatch was camouflaged.

It was the exact match for the lining of my bag!

I settled in for another day of brilliant telling, happy that I had received a tiny hexagonal sign that I am exactly where I am meant to be on my storytelling journey.

Even on the occasions where the road seems dark and misty, I am enjoying the ride!

Thank you Lord!

Storytelling Converts

On a balmy late-summer evening, the first Saturday of September, I did a house concert with my friend, Speaker and Storyteller Bob Tryanski.

It was in his cousin’s house in Lincoln University, PA.

Besides being a gifted interior designer, Bob’s cousin, Patti Lyons, is the most in-demand Sarah Palin look alike in the nation, beloved by audiences of all political persuasions.

The evening was wonderful.

Nibbles, drinks and dinner were served inside the glorious house, then Bob and I told stories to an appreciative crowd on a covered deck. 

With the exception of a couple of aficionados, these people were storytelling virgins.

They were new to the genre and they loved it!

At the end of the performance one man came up to Bob and me with a look of surprise on his face.

“I almost didn’t come,” he said “I was sure it wasn’t going to be my kind of thing. But I really enjoyed it.  When the two of you told stories I got pictures in my mind. I was there right with you.  I could see it all.  Thank you.”

Yes!

Many wanted to know where they could hear more stories and storytellers.

Ah!  Be still my beating heart!

A crowd of storytelling converts!

Halleluiah!

Tats And Lace

Last Saturday, just before Hurricane Irene hit, I was heading to Chadds Ford, PA to conduct a christening for my adorable six-month old fourth cousin.

The last baptism I oversaw was for 36 tattooed, incarcerated men in my role as a prison chaplain.

Interestingly not one of them was wearing 100 year old lace.

Discovering Ocracoke

This August, I went on vacation to Hatteras Island in North Carolina with my cousin and her family and friends - and that is when I discovered Ocracoke, the 9.6 square mile remote Outer Banks island that can only be reached by public ferry, private boat or plane.

Let me more specific.

I didn’t just discover the island.  I fell irrevocably in love with Ocracoke.

It happened quickly.  Our group took the ferry to the island to go to the beach.  Ocracoke is known for its beaches.  I opted out and browsed around a wonderful bookstore, Books to be Red, nosed around the outside of the Deepwater Theater that hosts storytelling and music shows – and then was delighted that the white, weathered, Methodist Church was open.  I went in and sat down.  

And that’s when it happened.

It seemed as though the present disappeared and I heard the ancient rhythms of Ocracoke.  It was as though the tourists, the bustle, the rented golf carts that whizzed up and down the main street of the village didn’t exist. 

I felt the island’s heartbeat.

Connected with its heartbeat.

I must have entered a time warp.  Before I knew it an hour and a half had gone and I came out of that church in a daze knowing something of great personal importance had happened.

Now I have to tell you that I come from island stock.  I was born in England but the majority of my ancestors come from Ireland – both are islands of course – if large ones.   But there is a line of my predecessors that come from the Isle of Man, a small wind-blown island between the north west coast of England and Ireland about three times the size of Ocracoke but nowadays, as a tax haven, infinitely more crowded.

It was as though the genes of my forebears were rising up and thanking me for taking them back to a relatively isolated island.

I knew I would be returning to Ocrocoke many times.

I visited the island three times that week.  In between trips I did research.  I already knew it was the home of Donald Davis, America’s foremost storyteller - a genuinely lovely man - who lives there with his absolutely wonderful wife, Merle.  But I found out that Ocracoke has a music and storytelling festival, a vibrant arts community, and a week-long Ocracoke arts and traditions school that is held every fall. 

I inhaled everything I could about the history of the island, the local dialect - which was so reminiscent of the accent in the West of England where I went to university – the food lore (figs are abundant on the island and there is a local plant that can be made into tea.)  I was transfixed by incredible stories of shipwrecks, bravery, pirates, storms, wild ponies and a selfless, loving, generous people who have survived against all odds perched on a magical island thrust out into the sea off the shores of North Carolina.

I left for home and planned my return.

The following week Hurricane Irene hit.

I sat glued to my computer reading weather websites, local blogs and watching webcams as Irene lashed the Island.  I prayed deeply and fervently for protection for all those who lived there and for their property.

I thank the Almighty that my newly discovered Shangri-La did not become Atlantis.

Ocracoke survived - as it had over the centuries. - this time with minimal damage and flooding.  (Although Highway 12 that goes from Ocracoke's free ferry across and off  Hatteras Island was severed in five places leaving Ocracoke even more isolated than usual, albeit - most probably - temporarily.)

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When I think about my instant attachment to Ocacoke Island I am reminded of the book The Polar Express.

In that story, the first gift of Christmas was a bell from the harness of one of Santa’s reindeer.

Adults couldn’t hear it.

You could only hear it if you truly believed.

I feel as though I heard the bell ringing on Ocracoke. 

I felt the stories and the magic.

And I believe.